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Ruins Glossary
This page is dedicated to the many common stationary and interactive objects, mechanisms, traps, and other assorted things scattered throughout the ruins. This is a good place for beginning explorers to learn some of the basics of La-Mulana. For collectible items, refer to Collectibles or other appropriate Items pages. The Glossary is maintained in alphabetical order and contains official textual descriptions and images where appropriate. Ankh Ankhs are used to summon the Guardian of a respective area. Ankhs only appear in the front-side fields (with one exception) in what is typically called the Ankh room. Puzzles must be solved in each area to make their corresponding Ankhs appear. An Ankh will sit dormant in its room until the player acquires one or more Ankh Jewels, at which point the Ankh will begin to glow intensely with the aura of its Guardian and the background music will change. Using an Ankh Jewel while standing in front of the Ankh will break it, summoning the Guardian and beginning the boss fight. The Ankh Jewel need not be from the same area as the Ankh itself. Barriers Barriers are beams of energy fired straight up from a mechanism in the floor. They are typically used to prevent the player from accessing some important object, like a doorway, chest, or dais. Touching a barrier will cause damage and knockback. Most barriers can be deactivated by solving some puzzle, usually placing a weight on a dais (not necessarily in the same room), though some barriers will appear as traps. Block Blocks are just what they sound like: blocks! They can be pushed from the right or left, but cannot be pulled. Blocks can be dropped off ledges and stacked on top of one another, but a stack of blocks cannot be pushed from its base. Blocks can usually be pushed onto plates, colored sections of the floor, where they will sink down slightly and glow (see image). This is a common mechanism for puzzle-solving, and in some cases multiple blocks must be placed on several plates to solve a puzzle. Refer to Block Puzzles for some of the more involved block puzzles and their solutions. Blocks can be pushed faster after obtaining the Glove. Breakable Wall Breakable Walls are fairly common elements throughout the ruins. When struck with any Weapon or Sub-Weapon, these sections of wall will emit a cracking sound, scattering dust and bits of debris, until eventually they shatter, revealing a passage. Some breakable walls need to be struck with a specific weapon, such as Bombs - when hit with the wrong weapon, they will emit a low, flat sound. Other sections of wall cannot be broken with any weapon, and require solving a puzzle, placing a Weight on a Dais, or breaking a Wall Seal - these often produce a high-pitched metallic sound when struck. While many breakable walls contain optional secrets, such as Coin Chests, others are necessary to solve puzzles and open passageways needed to proceed. Always keep an eye out for suspicious walls and passages which have no obvious entry point, as a breakable wall might be in the way. Just be careful if a Eye of Divine Retribution is present in the room. Chest Chests are the most common way for the player to find Treasures throughout the ruins. They appear as a blue treasure chest with gold trim and will usually be locked, requiring the player to solve some puzzle to open it. Unlocking a chest will cause its lid to pop up slightly ajar, its contents visibly glowing from inside. To open the chest, simply attack it with your Main Weapon or Sub-Weapon, causing the lid to open and its contents to appear in front of it ready to be picked up. Empty chests will remain behind, lid wide open with nothing visible inside. Coin Chest Coin Chests are bronze-colored treasure chests found hidden throughout the ruins. These are slightly smaller than regular Chests, and are usually not found in plain sight. Most Coin Chests are found hidden in walls and other hard-to-find areas, and in most cases simply finding them will cause them to unlock. Attacking them with your Main Weapon or Sub-Weapon will cause them to open, spilling out a healthy sum of Coins to the ground, or in rare cases, Ammo for your Sub-Weapon. Coin Chests are a handy way to make some extra cash, but they only dispense coins once. For players of the original La-Mulana, Coin Chests are usually found in breakable walls where many of the collectible MSX ROMs could be found. The amount of coins dropped from a Coin Chest can be increased with an Item Fairy. See Coin Chest Locations Dais A Dais (pronounced day-ihs) is one of the most common puzzle mechanisms found throughout the ruins. It appears as a small stone pedestal, and the player will walk behind it rather than in front of it. Standing behind a dais and pressing Down will place a Weight on it, causing it to sink into the floor out of sight, triggering some form of puzzle (not necessarily in the same room) or a potential trap. Always be mindful of your surroundings when placing a weight on a dais to avoid accidentally triggering damaging or fatal traps - a dais surrounded by skeletons might be one to avoid! Another common type of dais is a wall surrounded by two half-'daises'. For these, placing a weight on either side will cause the wall to recede, allowing you to pass through to the other side, but you will need to do this again every time you re-enter the room. These mechanisms are designed to drain your supply of weights, so try not to run around in circles too much! Daises have a short animation and delay when you trigger one, so if you're paranoid, drop a weight and quickly move off to the side. It is possible to escape confining traps this way. Hint: Some innocuous objects in the ruins may not look like daises, but behave like them. Doorway A Doorway is any obvious opening in the background which can be entered. Enter a doorway by standing in front of it and pressing Up. Doorways like the one pictured usually lead to NPCs or Shops within the ruins. There are some not-so-obvious doorways as well. Some doorways in the Twin Labyrinths are actually Twin Gates and are only usable once they are flashing white. See also: Backside Doors and Twin Gates Eye of Divine Retribution Shoots lightning when holy objects within the ruin are damaged. The Eye of Divine Retribution is an element found in the background of many rooms throughout the ruins. Its presence indicates that some object or wall in the room is under divine protection, and striking it with any Weapon or Sub-Weapon will result in the player being struck with a large bolt of lightning, causing severe damage. This is a very good indication that there is a puzzle which must be solved or a wall/object that can be broken, but you should take care not to invoke the Eye's wrath. If a room does not have an Eye, consider it an open invitation to whip every possible surface you can reach in search of secrets. If you suspect something you try might invoke the Eye's wrath, you can intentionally hurt yourself with a smaller hazard immediately before doing it, so that you're invulnerable the moment the Eye strikes, avoiding its massive damage. You could, for example, drop Caltrops and step on them immediately before striking a suspicious place on a room with an Eye. Fairy Point A Fairy Point is a bright, sparkling light that can be found in several fields once you have found Isis' Pendant and spoken with the Fairy Queen. Stepping into the light will summon a Fairy to the screen to assist you in your travels for a limited time. The Fairy chosen is random unless you have a specific Software Combination equipped to influence the odds. Once you have used a Fairy Point, all of them become disabled for a fixed length of time - this time can also be reduced by a specific Software Combination. Field A Field is a main subdivision of the ruins, each with its own theme in terms of music, function and aesthetic. Fields are connected to one another by Field Gates and Backside Doors. Most Fields in La-Mulana have a Frontside-Backside relationship with another Field, with common elements and themes between the two. For a complete list of Fields in the game, refer to . Field Gate Field Gates are ornate passageways which lead from one Field to another. They are found as doorways or as hatches in the floor/ceiling, typically with a placard indicating the number of the connecting Field. Backside Door Backside Doors are doorways within the fields that lead directly between corresponding Front and Backside Fields. These only appear once you obtained the Bronze Mirror, and the doorways remain locked until you have defeated the Guardian of that Field's respective Frontside. Twin Gate Twin Gates are special Backside Doors in the Twin Labyrinths that allow movement between opposing rooms. See Twin Gates. Flame Statue Flame Statues are required to use the Lamp of Time. They have the same "moon, sun and stars" pattern as the Nebra Sky Disk. They are scattered in various fields throughout the ruins and used as fuel for Lamp of Time. They will not be lit until the lamp is acquired and it is not full. Floor Switch Floor Switches are raised sections of floors which can be depressed by walking over them, at which point they will become flush with the rest of the floor. These are a less common mechanism for activating certain puzzles and traps, and all floor switches once depressed stay that way permanently. There are no "hidden" floor switches (flush sections of floor which behave like switches), but some floor switches can be rather hard to spot. Hint: The player is not the only thing that can step on a floor switch. Grail Tablet Everyone, make sure to follow the rules when using the Holy Grail Tablet. From Elder Xelpud --Surface Grail Tablet Grail Tablets (or Grail Points) are tablets found in each Field which, once read with the Hand Scanner, they allow you to warp to them using the Holy Grail. These are more ornate than regular tablets, featuring an engraving of the Holy Grail at the top, and there is exactly one per Field. Grail Tablets also double as Save Points - Pressing Down in front of a Grail Tablet brings up the Save Menu, allowing you to save your game. Warping to any Field with the Holy Grail will place you in front of that Field's Grail Tablet and also record a Quick Save, returning you to it upon death. To warp to any grail point in the back field, you need to have mirai.exe active on the laptop. Hot Springs Hot Springs are pools of relaxing water which gradually restore your Health. Apart from Experience and a Healing Fairy, this is the only way to restore your Health in La-Mulana. The main Hot Spring you'll find yourself using most often is at Surface (D-4), but one can also be found in Graveyard of the Giants (A-2). At first, Hot Springs will restore 1 Health per tick. By increasing your health with Sacred Orbs, the healing process will become faster. At 128 Health, it will restore 2 Health per tick. At 256 Health, it will restore 4 Health per tick. Journal Journals are writings left behind by dying adventurers, found on their skeleton corpses throughout the ruins. Similar to Tablets, these can be read by using the Hand Scanner on the skeleton, but don't require any Software to translate. Journals sometimes leave more straightforward hints than Tablets, give warnings to the player, or can simply be humorous. You can't actually take Journals with you, so use bunemon.exe if you want to record their messages. Ladder Ladders are very common throughout the ruins, used to connect platforms as well as lead into new rooms. The player can climb up and down ladders by standing in front of or above them and pressing Up/Down respectively. It is not possible to cling to ladders by jumping in front of them, nor can you jump off ladders while on them. However, you can hold Left/Right to face either direction while on a ladder and use any Weapon or Sub-Weapon. Being hit by an enemy while on a ladder will knock you down. Hint: Some objects may not look like ladders, but can be climbed like them! Mantra Tablet Recite the mantra correctly. Let us seal Tiamat, Baphomet, Palenque, Viy, Bahamut, Ellmac, Sakit, and Amphisbaena. --Temple of the Sun (C-3) Tablet Mantra Tablets are 10 tablets which, once read with the Hand Scanner, teach Lemeza a Mantra. They appear similar to Grail Tablets, but without the Holy Grail engraving on top. Eight of them are required to summon Mother, the final boss of the game. Two more are used in a puzzle for unlocking Mother's final forms. One-Way Door One-way doors are doors found within the ruins designed to trap or prevent the player from entering certain areas. An arrow printed on the side of the door indicates which way it opens. To open a one-way door, simply push against it until it rattles and swings open. The open door will then stay open until you pass through to the other side, at which point it will swing shut behind you, preventing you from going back the way you came. Pot Pots are scattered all throughout the ruins and are the most common way to stock up on Coins and Ammo. Pots can be used as platforms and broken with three hits from any Weapon or Sub-Weapon. The Bracelet makes it possible to break pots with one hit. A fixed number of pots contain 10 Coins which can only be collected once (Note: Unlike the original, 10 Coin pots do not refill by reloading the game!), while some have a chance to drop a particular type of Ammo. All other pots have a chance to drop between 0-2 coins when broken. Pots contain different designs in each Field and may look like entirely different objects altogether, such as rocks. Item Fairies will cause pots to drop significantly more Coins and Ammo. Secret Passage Secret Passages are exactly what they sound like. Unlike Breakable Walls, Secret Passages simply require passing through a section of wall. These can lead from one room to another, or can be simple hidden alcoves within a room. Many Secret Passages are in the foreground with Lemeza disappearing behind them, but there are others which are in the background where Lemeza will appear to be walking in front of the walls. Finding Secret Passages can be tough as they usually have no special markings or color variations to differentiate them from normal walls. Instead, keep an eye out for clues in the background, Journal hints, and visible passages which have no obvious entrance or exit. Spikes Spikes are harmful objects that can be found on floors, ceilings, and the walls. Coming into contact with their tips will cause damage, but it is possible to safely pass through most spikes when approached from the side. Spikes will always inflict damage equal to slightly under 15% of your max HP, so 7 hits of spikes at your HP capacity will kill you. Don't take spike damage lightly. Later in the game, there are spikes which always cause damage from any contact at all - Be careful! Tablet Tablets are free-standing stone slabs etched with hints, riddles, and pictures. Reading a Tablet requires the Hand Scanner, and most Tablets found within the ruins require the translation software reader.exe to read in English. Tablets are very important to solving puzzles, and while many contain clues for the current Field, some relate to puzzles elsewhere. Unread Tablets appear with a red glow around them which fades once they have been read, making it easy to see which Tablets you may have missed. Some Tablets are damaged and contain only partial text or no writing at all. Many Tablets in the ruins are written in the La-Mulanese language, which cannot be translated with the reader.exe software at first. Refer to La-Mulanese to learn how to translate these Tablets. La-Mulanese Tablets will maintain their red glow until you are able to translate them, making it easier to find them when backtracking through the ruins. The software bunemon.exe allows you to store a limited set of Tablet texts on your laptop for easy reference. You may still want to write them down the old-fashioned way. Trapdoor Trapdoors are sections of floors which drop out as the player walks over them. These are flush with the rest of the floor, meaning the only way to identify them is to fall through them. Trapdoors close back up once you have fallen through, ready to foil you again and again. While some trapdoors serve as shortcuts or mere nuisances, some can drop you into spikes or worse. If you are quick you can jump back out of them. Wall Seal Wall Seals are round murals found in the background of the ruins, each etched with the pattern of one of the four Key Seals. When the player has collected the appropriate Key Seal, the etching on the Wall Seal will glow. Jumping in front of it will cause it to shatter, subsequently activating a mechanism or solving a puzzle. Fields